Breaking and Bonding
by ladyknightsaiyu
Summary: Set DIRECTLY after Abhorson, and I mean DIRECTLy. The bells have broken, the dead are rising for no reason and the Old Kingdom is deteriorating. Can the bells be forged anew? Can they bind the dead without them?
1. Default Chapter

Breaking and Bonding  
  
This is set DIRECTLY after Abhorson. Meaning Garth Nix accidentally left of in the middle of a paragraph and I am continuing...lol  
  
Prologue  
  
Nick opened his eyes. There was a girl in front of him. She was kneeling beside his fallen body and there was blood on her shirt. She had a handless arm tucked close to her body and it was bleeding profusely. Her long dark hair was tangled and her face sweat streaked. Tears made clean trails through the dirt and grime of battle. Although she was so dirty, when she looked at Nick, he realized she was very beautiful but had been through great pain. Her eyes were deep pools of blue (I always imagined she had blue eyes though I'm not sure what the actual color is) but they were so dark and so cold. Nick reached up and brushed his fingers against her face. He did not know why. It just seemed like the right thing to do.  
  
"Nick." Lirael exclaimed, grabbing the boy, "Sam, Sam! Come quick, he's alive!" Sam came and everyone congregated around the once-dead boy. A charter mark flickered on his forehead. Lirael was about to point it out but she stopped. She could feel a slight vibration on her chest. Her good hand reached up and she felt the bandolier. It was shaking very noticeably now.  
  
"Sabriel!" Lirael cried out. The Abhorson Queen had noticed the same thing and she was desperately trying to stop her bells from ringing. Then, they burst free.  
  
All fourteen bells from both bandoliers ripped out of their casings. Sam's pipes tore themselves through his belt and when Sam tried to stop them, he screamed and drew back. Red and white blisters were popping all over his hands. A cacophony of sound ensued and all the bells were ringing. The light chimes of Ranna sounded so harsh now and the once-comforting peal of Saraneth was broken and discordant. The low moan of Astarael seemed more fierce and less subtle, less grieving. Then, the bells began to glow first red than white. Sam looked up and opened his mouth to yell, but the moisture was sucked out of his mouth by the growing heat. Then, in a loud and horrible cracking sound, the bells shattered.  
  
Shrapnel flew everywhere, slashing any exposed portion of skin, seeming almost to fly of their own accord toward tender areas.  
  
Lirael looked up, pain overwhelming her, and croaked with a dry and rattling voice,  
  
"They broke."  
  
And fainted.  
  
This is going to be short because it is the prologue. Review a whole lot and I will write more. By for now. 


	2. Chapter 2

Pre-mention to the Readers: Sorry for any mistakes in the previous chappy. I have reread the series and am no full up to date, kay? Thanks for sticking by!

Chapter 2

Lirael blinked, her mind gradually taking hold of what had happened. When the realization of it dawned on her, she quickly sat up, only to grab her head as a wave of dizziness rolled over her. She looked around and stood, searching for the Abhorsen or the King. She saw Sabriel's hair first. It had broken free of the leather cord she had bound it back with and it flowed around her shoulders, black and thick. A glare of light flashed in Lirael's peripheral vision. She turned only to stumble back, in horror.

The field was burning. Tongues of flame licked up and down where the Lightning Trap used to be. Lirael ran toward the Abhorsen to tell her about the fire, but all that came out was a croak. Then, Lirael realized, the field wasn't burning. It was the sun reflecting off of thousands of shards of bell metal. It was so terrible yet so beautiful at the same time. Lirael saw the Abhorsen staring off into the distance. She reached a pale hand forward and touched her shoulder. Sabriel turned.

Tears coursed down her cheeks in rivulets, drops falling from her chin. Lirael tried to ask what was wrong but all she could manage was

"What?" Sabriel shook her head and said in an equally horse whisper,

"Sam."

Worried, Lirael turned to search for her nephew. He lay by King Touchstone, slashed many times and bleeding profusely. She ran over to him and knelt behind the King. Touchstone's face was haggard and pale, his muscles taut with exhaustion, and his eyes rimmed with dark circles. Although Lirael was a little nervous she reached forward and placed her hands on Sam's temples, beginning a huge healing spell.

Touchstone blinked. His conscious had been consumed with Charter marks and Master marks for the past half hour. He was reaching the end of his rope, he knew when a burst of light flashed near him. Fresh magic coursed through Sam and partly to him. Very powerful magic. It felt like a bath after a hard day's riding: cool and refreshing. He pulled away and his physical eyes saw that it was Lirael. Her brow was furrowed in concentration, and thousands of Charter marks were knitting themselves together in front of her, occasionally falling to rest on Sam.

Touchstone was intrigued. He hardly knew this Lirael but he recognized her magic. That day, on the Clayr's Glacier he had sensed a bit of magic in the snow. Her magic. He realized that she was probably the one burrowed in the snow. Without thinking, he reached forward and tucked a lock of dark hair behind her ear, then pulled away, surprised by his sudden gesture of kindness.

Lirael felt it and she managed a smile. All of the Charter marks in her head were finally coming together. She concentrated then opened her eyes. She stood and croaked out every Master mark she knew. The King flinched and shuddered and even Sabriel, standing about fifty feet away flinched and turned. Lirael felt the hot power coursing through her throat but she ignored it. She kept on saying them until she felt she could go on no more. Then, she felt a hand on her shoulder. Lots of magic poured through her, allowing her to say the final marks. When she turned to see who it was, she was amazed to see the King, the Abhorsen, and a newly-awoken Nick all clasping each other's hands. Sabriel's hand was on her shoulder. Lirael looked down and realized that Sam was getting up. There was no sign of the lacerations from before and a bright pink color had returned to his cheeks.

The wind blew across the plain, strongly from the south. As it blew over the group, they all were hit with a wave of nausea.

"What is going on?" Nick asked Lirael, confusion obvious on his face.

"Normally we wouldn't be able to do magic this far south, even with a strong wind blowing from the north. Somehow we could except now, the wind has changed and it has robbed us of our sense of the Charter, weakening us." Lirael rasped out. Nick nodded. He looked around and saw Sam's sister, Ellimere talking with two beautiful twins. The royal heir walked over to her father and said loudly,

"The Clayr have summoned Paperwings to take us to Belisaere. They have done some sort of Clayr spell to change the wind so they will work."

The King nodded. As soon as Ellimere had finished speaking, a cool wind blew fiercely over them; a North wind. Sabriel had begun picking up the pieces of bell metal. Touchstone removed his shirt, to Lirael's embaressment, and handed it to his wife to place the shards in and then he too began picking the metal up. The twins, Sam, Ellimere, and Nick joined in along with Lirael. She looked up and snuck a glance at Nick. He was looking so confused right now, his emaciated body struggling along with his mind to pick up the shards, his Free Magic side rebelling. Soon, all the pieces of the metal were cleaned up and gathered in Touchstone's shirt.

"Where is Mogget. Er...I mean Yrael?" Lirael asked of Sabriel. The Abhorsen Queen smiled and answered softly,

"He is gone, probably to enjoy his freedom. He will always be Mogget to us, of course. He did leave a little present for you to open when you get 'to Belisaere' to quote the package." The King handed her a brown package wrapped in silver string.

Lirael nodded. She felt the pangs of sorrow already welling up inside of her. She missed the Dog now more than ever. She bowed her head and cried softly, her hair hanging over her face. Nick was the first to realize she was crying and came over, feeling rather guilty that he had come back from Death and not the Dog. An idea sparked in his head and he touched his forehead where the Dog had licked it and thought hard of something. When he opened his eyes, Lirael was looking at him. She laughed.

"Are you trying to do a spell? Don't unless you know what you are doing. I'll teach you later." Nick smiled back and promised not to try. Just then, a shadow fell over the sun. Lirael looked up, shading her eyes with a pale hand, and gave a croak of joy at the sight of three Paperwings landing. Although they made her nervous due to their life-like personalities and faces, she was overjoyed to see them now. Touchstone's voice called out to them.

"Sabriel, Nicholas, and Lirael you take the Abhorsen's Paperwing. Sam, Ellimere, and I will take the royal one. The Clayr may take their own." The group collectively nodded or called out in agreement. Soon, they had all crammed into the three aircraft. Although, normally each Paperwing sat only one or two, somehow these Paperwings were slightly larger and newer. Lirael smiled to herself.

"I'll bet the Clayr Saw us needing these." She said to Sabriel. The Abhorsen shrugged and replied, "Perhaps."

Soon the three Paperwings had risen into the noonday sky to the tune of Charter spelled whistles and made their way to Belisaere, the capital of the Old Kingdom.

AFTERWARD:

Hi everybody, yeah I am back with a new chapter. Sorry. I had to finish my Full Metal Panic story before this one. There are going to be twenty chapters so be prepared for a long ride! Lol.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

Needless to say, when the troupe had landed at Belisaere (the Clayr had gone back to the Glacier), they were not greeted very warmly. The Royal Guards were busy in a turmoil, most Charter mages had left to help stop onslaughts of dead appearing everywhere, and no one knew what had happened to the Abhorsen. When Sabriel returned, she was bombarded with reports of dead rising everywhere. She escaped to the Topography room with the King to mark the different areas requesting help. The Topography room was a large room with many spelled maps that showed current weather trends, movements of Free Magic creatures, and most importantly, the Clayr's map.

This map had been given to Sabriel after she bound Kerrigor. It showed everything: the current conditions of all known Charter Stones, weather conditions, how certain towns were faring, how the Wall was holding up, and how the Abhorsen's House was doing. Currently it reported that three towns had large masses of dead attacking them and one town was overrun already. All the Charter Stones so far had been replaced, including the one's by Edge (Touchstone had done those before they left), and a rainstorm was coming. Sabriel and Touchstone sat down and began to think over the current change of events.

Lirael sighed and flopped on her bed. Well, actually the bed in the room that Sam had given her. She had just returned from a loooong bath and was now dressed in one of Ellimere's gowns. She heard a tap on the wall between her and Nick's room. Groaning, she got up and made her way over to his room.

"Yeah?" She said, her voice cracking slightly. It still hadn't recovered from speaking the Master marks, yesterday. It had taken a day and most of the next to fly to Belisaere. They had flown well into the night also despite the Paperwing's dislike for it. According to the position of the sun right now, it was about four in the afternoon.

"What is going on? What were those metal shards? Why was I so sick? What-"

"Hold on, please!" Lirael laughed, taking a seat on the bed next to him. "I'll explain everything."

Sam knocked on Nick's door at midnight. He saw the light still on.

"Come in." He heard his friend call. He entered into the room and had to stifle a laugh. Lirael had fallen asleep on Nick's bed, her hair was frizzy from her bath and it fell over her face.

"She explained everything to me." Nick said to Sam with solemn eyes.

"Everything, what?" Sam asked, confused. Obviously they had been talking for a long time and Nick seemed to have a great weight lifted off of his shoulders.

"Everything. About Hedge, about that hemisphere thing, about her, about the Abhorsen, about the Charter, about the King, about you, about...well..everything!" Nick emphasized the 'everything' by throwing his arms to the side and waving them around a bit.

"I see you are caught up, then." Sam chuckled at his friend. He gestured to Nick to follow him. "Come on, its late. You can sleep in Lirael's room."

"She said she is going to teach me magic!" Nick exclaimed, his face lighting up. Sam nodded and helped Nick settle in.

"Good night, Nick. I'm glad you're alive." Even to Sam, his words sounded so plain.

"Yeah, so am I."

After Sam shut the door with a crisp snap, Nick decided go to bed. He looked around first, and his eyes caught Lirael's bandolier. He knew it was empty but he still ran his hands over it, stopping at each bell pouch to say its name.

"Ranna, Mosrael, Kibeth, Belgaer, Dyrim, Saraneth, and...uh..oh bloody hell, I'm forgetting one." He thought about it hard, and then exclaimed, "Astarael!"

He ran his fingers over Astarael's pouch and found the leather to be unusually cold. Intrigued, Nick opened the pouch and gave a cry when he saw that the bell was still there.

It had not broken.

Then next morning, Lirael awoke to find herself in Nick's room. She returned to her chambers and Nick was gone. She mulled over the events of the past week and finally she decided that she would return to the Clayr. The Great Library would have answers and perhaps she could consult Sanar and Ryelle in private. Although she wouldn't admit it, Lirael was also hoping to find some way to bring back her Dog. That decision in the forefront of her mind, she washed, dressed, and ate. She met up with Nick and confided in him her plans. He begged her to take him along. So, she agreed. After much more thought, she decided the best way would be to Paperwing herself up there. That meant learning the Charter marks needed and braving her fear of them, but Lirael was confident she could do it.

She stumbled upon Sam's workshop purely by chance, and also told him of her plans. He agreed but also confessed to her his plan to try to recreate the bells.

"If anyone can do it, you can, Sam!" She said, vehemently, "You are a Wallmaker!"

She also learned that the Charter marks needed would be infused into the Paperwings themselves and that she should probably leave at noon, when the dead were the weakest.

"I have a present for you." Sam said and handed her a black book with silver charter marks swimming all over it. Inside there were blank pages and it went with a black pen.

"It is a notebook that you can write anything in. Keep it and do with it what you wish." He said gruffly despite her giving him a huge hug and thanking him profusely.

Her first notation in it was to write down the Charter marks needed to spell the Paperwing. That all done, she packed and was ready to go. Nick gave a muffled knock at her door when she was done packing. She let him in and he began to speak, stuttering and obviously bothered by something.

"Uh...Lirael...um...er.." He murmured.

"Well what is it? Spit it out!" Lirael was getting a bad feeling about what he had to say...

"Astarael didn't break." Nick said, quickly. He felt a burden lifted off of him when he told her.

"What!?" Lirael couldn't believe her ears! Astarael? Not broken? Why? "It must be because the bell is bound to a physical form. That woman." Lirael shuddered at the memory. But that also must mean...

"Mogget! Ranna!" Nick filled in. She had told him of the binding and origin of the Free Magic being he was. Lirael's mind flashed to the package that the King had given her. He said Mogget had left it. Lirael scrambled to the cabinet and yanked it open. There lay the brown package wrapped in silver string that she had set there last night before heading to Nick's room. She ripped open the brown paper and sure enough there laid a silver bell.

Ranna.

Later that day, Lirael presented the Abhorsen and King with the two bells and also her findings about the bells being bound to spirits. Sure enough, Sabriel fetched her bandolier and found that Astarael was still there and Lirael fetched Ranna from her own bandolier. Altogether they had two Astaraels and two Rannas. Lirael handed her two bells over to the dark-haired Queen. Sabriel raised her perfect eyebrow.

"You need them more than me." She whispered. Sabriel nodded. A bugle sounded in the distance. Sabriel jumped up.

"It is time for me to go." And she was off.

And so they all parted. The King and Abhorsen Queen were off to confront the dead, Lirael and Nick were traveling to the Glacier to consult the Clayr's famous library, and Sam the Wallmaker was creating the bell.


	4. Chapter 4

Breaking and Bonding.

* * *

Chapter 4

Sam furrowed his brow. He was in his workshop, trying to figure out his bell experiment. He made many lists and charts but to no purpose or eventual result. As he did so many months ago, Sam walked along the tower wall talking to any guard that would listen.

"And if the original seven bells were made/bound from real people I need to bind my new ones to people, too. I reckon Lirael still has that statue that the Dog came from, but how else would I find the descendents of the seven? I mean, that leaves six of them still yet to be found!" He mumbled to Yavanna, a tall dark skinned guard from the region far north of the Clayr's glacier.

"Perhaps If I use the seven that bound Orannis." Sam spoke the Destroyer's name freely but Yavanna shivered, her eyes going cold. Sam took no notice and ranted on.

"Then maybe their blood or something mixed with the metal and some binding spells would." He trailed off, wandering in the direction of his storeroom. Ellimere intercepted him however and yabbered on and on about the goings on at her detested (by Sam) Petty Court.

"And the criminal was sooooo obsessed with the charm he stole that he couldn't help but bragging about stealing it!" She giggled her deep chuckle.

"He was about as yellow as a daffodil when the truth spell finally got to him but he kept telling us how he didn't do it but whoever did was perfect at it and blah blah blah and how it was the perfect crime for the guy. Finally I looked at him and said 'except the fact he was caught.' That silenced him" She winked.

Ellimere knew she could not send her brother off to do work at the petty court or some other various dreaded social activities because the Abhorsen Queen, Sabriel, her mother had forbidden it due to the fact Sam was working on creating the new bells.

Ellimere wished her brother good luck in his experiments and wandered of to due more regent-ly work. Sam sighed and opened the door to his workroom.

The Abhorsen Queen Sabriel, Sameth and Ellimere's mother and Lirael's half sister, pursed her lips and whistled a tune. The tune was a nice, peaceful one and was far too beautiful to be normal. Indeed that was correct for the Queen was whistling a fairly powerful whether spell to calm the gale-force winds slamming against her Paperwing.

Paperwings were certainly not created for heavy winds and they preferred not to fly in the dark. Sabriel's brow furrowed as she put more force into her whistle. Now, there was urgency in the tune and more of a frantic determination in her eyes. The sun was setting: her last reliable defense other than water against the dead about.

King Touchstone I, bastard prince and Sabriel's husband looked at his wife with worried eyes. He was aesthetically pleasing to the eye with a muscular physique and dark curls tight around his head. He too added his whistle to hers and together they calmed the growing tempest. His eyes narrowed however for on the horizon clouds of birds, moving fast were heading toward them with speed unique to the Dead.

Gore Crows.

Far away from Belisaere and the Royal Paperwing, a medium sized boat sped with urgency toward a sparkling shape in the distance. On the boat, Nick was knifing pieces of wood with a spell Lirael taught him. Their boat soon reached the underground dock of the Glacier and Lirael told Nick to wait. She rushed up and for some reason she found her feet leading her toward the forbidden Observatory.

Sanar and Ryelle were there talking hurriedly. They gave a cry when they saw Lirael and embraced her tightly.

"What do you need sister? Actually we have Seen what you need. Come, and discover!" They said in unison. Soon, Nick and Lirael, blindfolded, were being led through the pathways of the Observatory.

* * *

AFTERWARD;

Blahbalblah, review!


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